With well over a month left remaining in their season, the Spencer County Lady Bears equaled their total win amount from last season with a 57-50 win over a traveling Australian squad Monday night at home.

Mid-January report cards on big dogs.
Louisville. Polls aside, the Cardinals are ranked best in America where it counts, defensive efficiency. Poll position? Not relevant for another six weeks.
Kentucky. Normally, this Wildcat collection would get an ‘I’ for incomplete, except it has underachieved, responded poorly to Camp Cal and in-your-face antics by its coach and lost twice at home. C-minus.
Looking ahead ...

Price of bullion is up, way up. The gold standard, defined by Kentucky’s Mitch Barnhart last year, has been reset and belongs in Jefferson County.
As we head into mid-winter, University of Louisville athletics is on a hot streak that dazzles the mind of even the most ardent fan in Big Blue Nation.
• U of L has a Sugar Bowl trophy and $17 million dollars (before the Big East takes its cut).
• Rick Pitino’s team survived arch-rival Kentucky, is ranked in the top five, and hasn’t lost a game since before Thanksgiving.

It’s the time of year for resolutions that make us feel good for a few days after making them, but lie in the junk heap of our actions by Valentine’s Day.
For those who love to hunt and fish, a few resolutions for next year that should be kept will make each hunting or fishing trip much better in 2013.

If you ever want to teach an object lesson about darkness, head to a cave. Walk or crawl as far back into it as possible to where absolutely no light at all is visible. Then, light a single small candle. It’s amazing how blackening dark can actually be.
If you ever want to teach an object lesson about silence, head to a high school basketball holiday tournament. Since I’ve been covering high school sports for well over 20 years at different locations throughout Kentucky, I’ve been to several of these events. Funerals have more life and energy.

It wasn’t a merry return to the court two days after Christmas for the Spencer County Lady Bears, as they fell in their opening round matchup of the Whitefield Academy tournament to Scott High School, 83-55 Thursday afternoon.